


The Adventure of the Cluck and Balls

by Vulgarweed, Winter_of_our_Discontent



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Ball Pit, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Crack, Crossover Hell, Fandom Meta - Freeform, It's For a Case, M/M, References to Bestiality, References to Drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-11 22:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2086059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vulgarweed/pseuds/Vulgarweed, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winter_of_our_Discontent/pseuds/Winter_of_our_Discontent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a dead body in the ball pit. Luckily, Sherlock’s on the case (and John’s on Sherlock. Not like that. Okay, maybe a bit like that. But those balls are slippery!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Adventure of the Cluck and Balls

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to our cheerleaders and betas snogandagrope and reluctantabandon, with a special shout-out to lareinenoire and fiberistanora for helping with the fic and for being there in the con trenches with me. We few, we happy few, we band of nutters...
> 
> ILLUSTRATED NOW! drinkingcocoa used Pei/sodelightfully's adorable Cumberclays to give us some   
> [steamy ball pit action!](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/drinkingcocoa/16377160/440553/440553_600.jpg)

“I’m home,” John said as he set the Tesco’s bags down on the floor, since the kitchen table was completely colonised by, well, a colony of something he didn’t want to look at too closely.

Silence. And not necessarily the silence of Sherlock being up to something; it was more like the silence of a Sherlock-free space. John pulled his mobile out to check for missed texts.

 _Had to nip over to Belarus,_ perhaps? Or _Don’t touch the sea creature in the fridge_. Or even _Feed the sea creature in the fridge, I’m testing how well it can digest human livers. Top shelf, twice daily, take notes._

Nope. Nothing. John sighed and walked into the living room, hoping he could still catch the tail end of Top Gear. Only half paying attention and with his mind already on the show, he nearly walked right into the huge object occupying the whole room.

It was - well, what the hell was it? He peered over the edge and saw nothing but a sea of plastic balls in varying colours. Oh, it was one of those ball pits that kids like to play in. Huh, he thought. What was it doing there? When had it appeared? Who had brought it? Certainly Sherlock went through second childhoods so often that he’d probably technically been in one since his mid-20s, but still. Didn’t people usually get those for birthday parties? Sherlock’s birthday was a ways past and it was months until his.

It didn’t add much to the room’s decor, but then, it wasn’t leaking, dripping, or rotting, so he’d certainly seen worse in their flat.

But something about it made him smile a little. He’d never been in one. It kind of looked like it might be fun. And there was no one around to see him playing with these balls, right? Presumably Sherlock’s balls? Or maybe they were Mrs. Hudson’s balls. Oh no, what if they were some poor murder victim’s balls? (Again!) He might as well give it a go. 

John gingerly stepped into the pit, awkwardly feeling the plastic balls shift under his feet until they hit the bottom. It wasn’t deep enough to properly dive into any more than a child’s wading pool would have been, but John gave it his best try, holding his arms out from his sides in a spread eagle position and letting himself fall backwards into the centre of the pit.

As his body hit the balls he felt himself slipping downward as though in rainbow quicksand, jerky downward movements as the balls underneath gave way. He began to flail as he tried to push himself back up, until he hit something that was firmer than these particular balls but softer than the floor, and a good deal warmer and with a higher thread count than either.

“Bloody hell!” John said, scrambling to right himself and only succeeding in sinking deeper and deeper. He thrust his hands down between the balls to steady himself, as he had done since puberty, and landed on something solid. That wasn’t a floor. It was both a little firm and a little bit soft, and there was fabric. Expensive fabric. Suspiciously like silk, in fact. Silk stockings over firm, long flesh.

“Hello, John. I see you’ve found the ball pit.” Balls burst up everywhere and rained back down again as Sherlock sat up, because even in a ball pit the poncy git could apparently move as though he was a ballerina in a terribly avant garde Czech production of Swan Lake. Set in a ball pit. (He’d had a girlfriend who’d been very into experimental theatre.)

“Sherlock, why the hell is there a ball pit in the middle of the flat?” John said, neatly sideswiping the question of why said flatmate had been lying in the bottom centre of the ball pit, as that might lead to awkward questions about why a certain forty year old ex-army doctor had just been caught jumping into said ball pit onto said flatmate. Especially since said doctor was now effectively in his flatmate’s lap, it being a very small ball pit. Especially since said doctor was noticing that said flatmate was _dressed like a woman,_ complete with low-cut blouse and crimson lipstick, and if the brush of John’s hand had been accurate, a very short skirt.

“It’s for a case,” Sherlock said exasperatedly, as if John’s boggling were anything other than a perfectly natural reaction.

“Of course it is.”

“Yesterday a woman’s body was found in the ball pit of a children’s play area. Gave little Billy’s birthday party an extra fillip of excitement, no doubt.”

“Who found the body?”

“Little Billy, I believe,” Sherlock said. “Or perhaps it was little Susie. At any rate, one of a dozen nine-year-olds discovered a corpse in a ball pit.”

John closed his eyes, still half-afloat on a roiling sea of balls interrupted only by the bony reefs of Sherlock’s legs, and tried to imagine the pandemonium that must have occurred when a child did more or less what he’d just done, but bumped against flesh that was cold and stiff and no longer had any capacity for smart-arsery. “Those poor kids,” John said.

Sherlock snorted. “Children shouldn’t be shielded from the reality of death.”

“Rolling over a dead body in a ball pit is a lot different from looking at Grandma in a box with flowers on,” John said.

“Anyway,” Sherlock said. “The body had been dead for approximately six hours when the discovery occurred. The incident happened at the Little Whinging branch of Cluck E. Dash’s Arcade and Fun Complex at approximately 4 PM yesterday.” He pronounced the word “fun” like it gave him hay fever. “As usual, Scotland Yard is clueless.”

“And they’ve invited us in?”

“Not as such, no.”

“Okay,” John said, still trying to hide the fact that he was trying to climb out of the ball pit and failing. “So . . . you’re doing independent research.”

“Yes. I would prefer to do my tests at the actual ball pit where the body was found, but I haven’t yet succeeded in getting access, so I had to settle for this makeshift substitute. It’s much smaller than the proper one, and I’m a bit larger than the victim, so I concluded that in order to get as close as possible to reproducing the conditions, I would need to spend more time in this one. An extra hour, specifically. And I needed to be as corpselike as possible, to determine if an adult human body would settle naturally to the bottom, given an extra hour, or whether the balls must have been manipulated.”

John felt that he could almost relax against that weird rolling sensation, until the next worst possible thing happened: Mrs. Hudson pushed the door open with a tray of biscuits in her hands, brisked on in, and set the tray down before she really looked at John and Sherlock, and when she did, she let out the most dreadful little titter.

Why was she giggling? Two grown men, fully-clothed - one of them in women’s clothes - sitting in what amounted to a kiddie pool full of balls; hardly the most scandalous thing _she’d_ seen in her checkered past.

“Sorry we couldn’t install you two a hot tub,” she said. “But I don’t think this old plumbing could take it.”

“It’s for a _case,_ Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock huffed in an aggrieved fashion.

“Of course it is, dear,” she said patronisingly, backing away slowly. “I’ll just leave you boys to your . . . balls.”

 _Great, just great,_ John thought. _Not only is she sure we’re shagging, now she must think the sex is_ really fucking weird.

John licked his lips nervously. _Would it be really weird, with him? It would have to be, wouldn’t it?_

This was not a good line of thought to have about one’s flatmate while one is sitting with him in a tub of thousands of plastic balls, and one is still afraid one might have accidently groped two of the four balls in the pit that _weren’t_ made of plastic.

He was startled by the unmistakable ping of Sherlock’s mobile, and only slightly mortified when Sherlock started to pat himself down for it, displacing balls everywhere. Then Sherlock groped John a little bit, because his phone had fallen out of his pocket and found its way down to the bottom of the ball pit, right under John’s left thigh.

“At last,” Sherlock said. “Lestrade has seen the obvious. He needs me for this one.”

“Doesn’t he always?” John said, out from under his wounded dignity.

“Sooner or later. And I need you, of course. We’re going to a restaurant and entertainment complex for children, so of course it could be very dangerous.”

Sherlock shifted to start to lift himself out of the ball pit, and there was a distinctive pop and hiss as the punctured ball pit began to deflate. John looked down to see what could have caused that, and, well _of course._

Sherlock Holmes was so thorough an investigator that he’d even attempt to wear stiletto heels in a ball pit.

He changed into his normal suit-and-tight-shirt ensemble before heading out in public, though, and John hadn't even had to remind him.

 

***

Cluck E. Dash’s Arcade Fun Complex was one of those overweeningly hyperactive manufactured-fun outlets, overpriced and carefully designed to make spoilt children badger their parents into submission. It had everything: greasy overpriced food from the microwave, deeply sketchy “entertainers,” sublimely creepy cartoon mascots (Mads the Stag, Cecil the… god knows what, but he had tentacles, Sammy the Moose, Ozzy the Otter, and Hedwig the Hedgehog, for whatever reason, probably some lewd inside joke among sexual deviants) and a colour scheme that looked like what you might get if Moriarty had had a hobby of strapping Semtex to Teletubbies. (Maybe he did, the sick fuck.)

Probably the most repellent aspect was the mind-control factor. _Mummy and Daddy paid an arm and a leg for this and by God, you’ll have fun, damn you, even if Mummy and Daddy are divorcing or your best friend just told you he hates you or the mascots give you nightmares or you were that kid who ate something you shouldn’t and were sick all over the sandbox._

All right, maybe John was projecting a little bit.

Then he tried to imagine little-boy Sherlock actually trying to have fun in such a place, and felt even worse. Except that _he’d_ have thought it was the best birthday ever when the dead body turned up.

He still would, actually, which made birthday shopping for Sherlock simultaneously more and less simple.

The staff all wore flower crowns, blue polo shirts, and the closest approximation to a Glasgow Grin John had ever seen without an actual blade being involved.

All the disturbing animal mascots with their dead, empty eyes and expressionless faces that were supposed to be cute were represented by vaguely animatronic effigies that lurched and twitched in ways that made John’s medical instincts unhappy, and the squeaks and creaks of their engines weren’t always drowned out by the overwhelming sensory overload of the literal bells and whistles on the countless arcade games.

John was just about to press his hands to his head and flee when he realised he’d lost Sherlock somewhere. And he started to panic nearly as much as he might had Sherlock actually been a six-year-old. He could be anywhere. He could have stuck himself in anything. He could even now be at the mercy of a murderer disguised as Sebastian the Tiger with the creepy facial scarring (probably a product of a failed cleaning process).

It wouldn’t do for a grown man to panic, though. Not with so many children and their parents around at least appearing to have fun. John wandered through the game arcade, trying to _focus, goddammit._ Squeeek squeeek ding ding ding ding ding bwoop bwoop bwoop bwoop _Christ._ John wondered if Sherlock would even be able to get into his Mind Palace here. Or his Mind Bouncy Castle, at least.

John sat down for a moment to get his bearings, and noticed a pretty, curvy ginger watching a curly-headed girl hurl herself around in the literal bouncy castle. “That one yours?” he said.

“Oh yes. What’s yours up to?”

“I shudder to think. He’s a handful,” John said honestly. “What’s your name?”

“Amy,” she said. “That’s River in there. She likes the shooting games best usually. She’s really good at them. But you never know what she’ll get up to or where she’ll turn up. She’d be here for _years_ if I let her, she loses track of time.”

“I can imagine,” John said. “They have shooting games here?” 

“Right over there. You want to play? We might as well, we’ve already paid for everything, right?”

“Are you alright leaving her?”

“Oh, she’s very mature for her age.”

“Wish I could say the same of mine,” John said as they made their way to the game area.

“Well he can’t get into too much trouble in _here,_ surely.”

“You’d be surprised,” he muttered. 

The first shooting game they passed wasn’t terribly realistic, which was probably a good thing. Amy proved herself fairly capable, which John found fairly attractive. She won herself a red felt fez with the company logo, and put it on, where it clashed violently with her hair and lost. Little River came bounding up and cried, “Mum, you can’t wear that! It’s embarrassing.”

Somehow River had managed to get her finger hurt in the bouncy castle, and John immediately turned his attentions to it. Nothing serious. “I’m a doctor,” he explained quickly. 

River’s eyes lit up. “Oh, you’ve done it now,” Amy said. “She _loves_ doctors.” Amy leaned in a little close as John bent over the plastic gun to take his shot. “Runs in the family,” she purred.

John smiled to himself as he tried to concentrate. Wasn’t easy - every booth around them was occupied with noisy people, and the two grown men next to them were making quite a spectacle of themselves.

“Dammit, I swear these things are rigged.”

“Your inability to knock down the strange fringed creatures with the plastic ball cannon does not affect my opinion of you, Dean,” his partner reassured him.

“This cannon just ain’t working,” the man in plaid insisted.

“What I love about this place is the diversity,” Amy said. “Aww, a gay couple from the States.”

John gave just one surreptitious glance over. Lingering only a little.

Then he took his first shot, having already calculating how much he’d have to compensate for the obvious weighting to favour the house. Dead center. Prize won, a screaming pink My Little Pony knockoff with a flower crown. River turned her nose up at it, but Amy seemed happy. John couldn’t resist a second round, though, and the disgruntled staffer handed him a plushie version of the company mascot, a grinning rooster with some sort of eye disorder. He was just about to try to palm this off on Amy or River too, when he heard a familiar deep voice in his ear. “Nice cock, John.”

“It’s for you!” John blurted as he turned around and shoved it at Sherlock.

“Just what I always wanted,” Sherlock said.

“Find out anything useful?”

“You mean with regards to the dead body found by a small child in the ballpit on these premises just the other day, which they’ve doubtless not had time to properly disinfect?”

River looked entranced while Amy looked horrified.

Sherlock wasn’t done. “They must have some sanitation protocol in place to address the urine and vomit and other effluvia that small children are prone to expelling, but I’m reluctant to speculate about how frequently it’s applied. Considering the shoddiness of the construction of all the equipment and the general state of filth of the mascot costumes, which judging by the dyes used date from at least the mid-eighties, I think we can assume that corners were cut whenever possible. John, you’re a doctor, you probably have a good working knowledge of all the types of diseases that can be transmitted in such a place. Hand sanitiser won’t begin to cover it, really...“

Amy was looking a little green. That clashed with her hair too. “River, honey, you look tired. We’d best be getting home. Lovely to meet you, John. What was your little terror’s name again?”

“Sherlock,” John said, introducing them. “Sherlock, this is Amy and River.”

“Aren’t you a little tall for the ball pit?” Amy said.

“I’m a bit taller than the victim of the murder we’re investigating, but that’s not hugely relevant,” Sherlock said haughtily and turned away, expecting John to follow him, which of course he was right about, the git.

“Lovely meeting you both,” John called over his shoulder.

“You shouldn’t have lied to me,” Amy said quietly to herself. “We could’ve been LJ friends.”

***

“So have you actually found anything yet, or just traumatized everyone else here?”

“Nothing I do could be more traumatic than being here in the first place, John. But to answer your question, I found this,” Sherlock said, holding up a small metal object that glinted in the fluorescent light, “in the ballpit. I also found one used condom, assorted candy wrappers, several screws, and two pound seventy-four in coinage.”

“What is it?” John asked, trying, and failing, to look over Sherlock’s shoulder.

“I could tell you now, but I’d rather wait for a dramatic denouement so I can look extra clever.”

“Fair enough, what next?”

“I need you to keep watch while I search the manager’s office.”

“All right, I suppose I can do that. Where’s the office?”

“This way,” Sherlock said, leading John through a labyrinthine plastic playground that reverberated with bouncing balls and screaming kids.

They came around a half-blind bend and wound up face to face with, of all people, Sally Donovan. “Oh, it’s _you,_ ” she said, “Should have known.”

“Are you attempting to investigate this murder?” Sherlock asked with a sneer.

“No, someone called the police because of two creepy men without children hanging around. Adults in the minor’s area. People were worried it might be some _freaks.”_

“Where’s Goronwy?”

“Who?”

“I think he means Greg, Sally,” John said. “Lestrade.”

“He’s off doing police work. You know, solving crimes, being an actual police officer instead of some creepy dilettante and his trusty boy wonder.”

“And yet you’re here looking for a… man in a dirty trench coat? Spotted one over in the arcade. Seemed a bit _off_ somehow. Figures you’d be barking up the wrong tree.”

“I’m not sure I’d put anything past you,” Sally sighed and swanned off towards the arcade. 

“Still the president of your fan club, I see,” John said. 

“No, that’d be Anderson,” Sherlock grumbled. “Can’t wait for him to show up. But this is the perfect opportunity to investigate the manager’s office while he’s otherwise engaged. Otherwise I’d planned to make you stage a scene involving those animatronics, a birthday cake, and that can of grey paint I spotted near the front desk.”

“Small mercies, I suppose.”

The office turned out to be down a twist and turn of depressing off white linoleum hallways, where the noise of the shrieking children and beeping, whooping games still carried, completely unconducive to concentration for any kind of serious work.

“Keep watch,” Sherlock ordered John as he picked the lock effortlessly. Not a moment too soon, because as soon as he was through the door, a man came down the hallway towards him, accompanied by a small pack of dogs.

“Oh, sorry,” the man said, “I thought it would be quiet back here.”

“No problem,” John replied, “I’d been rather hoping the same thing. But there’s no reason we can’t share the hallway.”

“That sounds… fine,” the man said.

“Are you staff?” John asked. “Only, you’ve got the… “ he gestured at his head. 

“Oh, this?” the man said, patting the flower crown nesting incongruously in his dark curls. “No idea. It just sort of… appeared there.”

“Ah,” John said. “Can I pet your dogs?”

The man smiled. “Sure. They’re technically working, stress dogs, but they’re very friendly.”

John leaned down and fussed over the dogs for a bit. He’d always liked dogs, especially ones as well behaved as these. Maybe he should ask for training tips. “Four of them?”

“I get very stressed.” From the dark circles under the man’s eyes, he could have used a few more, but who was John to judge?

“They’re lovely dogs. And I like the matching flower crowns.”

The man was beaming now. “Thanks. That was my design.”

Sherlock burst out of the office door, startling both men and all of the dogs, who formed a protective circle around their owner. “Found it, John!”

“Hm, they’re not barking,” John said. “That’s curious.”

“That would be rude.”

“Never mind the dogs, John, let’s go,” Sherlock said, grabbing John’s hand and pulling him back towards the play area. “We’ve got a killer to unmask.”

Behind them, the man muttered “A killer? Here? I’m gonna need more dogs.” 

They found Sally questioning a surprisingly nattily dressed man near one of the registers. “There’s no sign of anyone like that here, I assure you, Sergeant,” he said, with one of those posh Oxbridge accents that always made John’s knuckles itch. “We take security here very seriously.”

“They just… vanished into thin air, then, Mister… Porter, was it?”

“Rick Porter, yes, I own this franchise.”

“Rick!” Sherlock called out, and the man turned and paled as they approached. 

“Sherlock? I…”

“Fancy running into you here,” Sherlock said, slapping the man on the back in false bonhomie. “This doesn’t seem quite your element, all these children, packed in like _sardines._ You never were much of a _people_ person, were you? Still, doing well for yourself, I don’t doubt. Likely positively _swimming_ in money.”

The man’s face turned pale and then red.

“Of course, so many _hoops_ to jump through, and I wonder . . . to what... _porpoise?_ Did Ms. Sands find out? Is that why she had to die? Because she was blackmailing you? The extra seventeen thousand pounds she demanded must have been the last straw. I’m trying to imagine the desperate grab you must have made at first to try to pay her off. Did you threaten to throw the children out? Tell them their party rooms weren’t paid for? Did they cry? Did you pass around a big bag of cash, emotionally blackmailing parents? Oh, no wonder you decided to just kill her instead.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sherlock,” the man turned to Sally and with an air of desperation said, “you mustn’t listen to him, he’s an old ex of mine, still bitter about me breaking up with him in that sushi restaurant.”

“Ah yes,” Sherlock said sarcastically, “so long and thanks for all the fish.”

“You and he didn’t actually…” John said.

“Of course not, John, you know I hate sushi.” Sherlock turned back to Porter and the increasingly confused looking Sergeant Donovan.

“You can’t possibly have thought you could get away with this for very much longer. Your cufflink is missing. Your password is weak. ‘Flipper,’ really?” He leaned in close, eyes narrowing and voice insinuating. “The point is . . . _dolphins.”_

Then the man lunged forward, furious, and from the inside of his suit jacket he pulled out an implausibly large ball cannon and aimed it at Sherlock. “I keep this for protection,” he snarled. “It looks like a toy but it isn’t.”

But along with the plastic gun came a ziploc bag that had stuck to it, full of white powder, and it fell on the floor with a quiet, incriminating sort of splat. Sally looked it at as a realisation clicked into place, but there wasn’t much she could do without further endangering the hostage. Maybe from her point of view that was a feature, not a bug - but still, she was a professional.

And then Cluck E. Dash himself burst into the room, full of feather-flying fury, and tackled the man to the ground, knocking the cannon away. The Ball-Blasting Action! did indeed punch several large holes in the wall.

John and Sherlock gaped at the terrifyingly adorable mascot, with his sort of off-brand Foghorn Leghorn look, and gaped even harder when the creature somehow produced a gun and pointed it at Rick Porter, who was cowering on the floor. “Don’t just stand there,” he said. “Help me tie him up!”

Sally grabbed ropes from the jungle-gym, hog-tying Porter thoroughly with great big bulging knots.

“Christ, but it’s hot in there,” Cluck E. said, pulling his costume head off.

“Gerwyn!”

“GREG, Sherlock, it’s Greg, G-R-E-G, if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand…” John said angrily, before the rest of it caught up with him. “Wait a minute. It’s Greg! Bloody hell, Greg, what are you doing in there?”

“Sir!” said Sally, as stunned as the rest of them. “I’d like to respectfully request an explanation. Failing that, I’d like to disrespectfully demand one. Sir.”

“Undercover operation, Sally, very hush-hush.” Greg said, handing the gun off to her and continuing to strip out of the chicken suit. “Porter here was suspected of being involved in a massive drug-smuggling operation. Finding the dead woman here gave us an excuse to finally get a warrant.”

“So you know him?” John asked Sherlock. Lestrade just made a sympathetic sound.

“Oh yes, from back in the old days,” Sherlock said. “Gryffydd remembers, I’m sure.”

“Who?” said John.

“It’s _Greg,”_ Lestrade sighed. “Now I know you’re doing it on purpose.”

“Sorry, Gwydion.”

“What’s with the Welsh theme now?”

“Filming in Cardiff, it rubs off,” Sherlock muttered, making a dismissive gesture. “Yes, of course it’s Rick Porter. As you know, John, I have a bit of a chequered past, occasionally came into contact with shady characters. I met Porter when he worked in construction, took on a job for the Maida Vale Marine Biologist’s Association, as they called themselves.”

John blinked and shook his head as he tried to make that make sense. “But it’s not even on the ocean.”

“You should know that there is no point in Great Britain that’s more than 70 miles from the sea. And knowing that would keep you up at night if you’ve seen the things this man says he’s seen. So he was contracted to build a dolphin tank for a luxury resort. A very _exclusive_ resort. Dedicated to people with unusual tastes. He got on so well with the proprietors they made him a partner. How’s business, by the way?” he asked the angry, struggling man, who promptly tried and failed to spit in his face.

“Oh, not so well then,” Sherlock went on. “There’s been a bit of a scandal. Shoddy construction, accidents, people were hurt. At least that’s the official story. Those tanks - a bad panel here, a worse panel there. Minors allowed in adult areas. You know all the ways these things can go wrong. So tell me, Rick, are you still trying to seduce young men who are interested in cocaine?” He looked at John and Lestrade with a little smile. “He was always trying to get me to go ‘swimming with dolphins.’ Imagine my surprise when I realised that _wasn’t a euphemism._ I was almost impressed. That little resort offered some very exotic entertainment indeed. Cocaine and prostitutes, run of the mill -- but dolphins?”

Porter looked down. “It got out of hand. Their needs, their demands, the sheer amount of blow they went through . . . through their, er, blow-holes.”

“The prostitutes?” John asked.

“The _dolphins?”_ Lestrade squeaked.

“The prostitutes _are _dolphins, try to keep up,” Sherlock said flatly. “And they aren’t content to be paid only in kippers and crab anymore, are they, Rick? Most people have no idea how much cocaine it takes to keep a dolphin happy.”__

__“That question had honestly never occurred to me,” John said, trying to keep himself out of the abyss of madness._ _

__“But our friend here knows all about it now, doesn’t he?” Sherlock smirked._ _

__But John’s brain was still making brake-screeching noises over an earlier point. “So wait . . . when you say dolphin prostitutes, you mean . . . ?”_ _

__“Exactly what you I think I mean,” Sherlock said._ _

__“Oh God, that’s disgusting!”_ _

__“The dolphins don’t seem to mind,” Sherlock said. “They’re quite assertive participants, from what I’m told. Particularly when they’re high.”_ _

__“But . . . but . . . “ From the matching looks of horror on John and Lestrade’s faces, it should have been clear to anyone they were trying to avoid imagining it, and failing._ _

__“And . . . the people?” John stammered._ _

__“It helps them to be high as well. That can lead to, shall we say, a flattering appraisal of one’s own prowess. And capacities.”_ _

__“Oh God.” John thought he was going to be ill, and it wasn’t all the sickly-sweet stench of burnt caramel popcorn, although that certainly wasn’t helping. A horrible, horrible thought was rising like some hideous sea creature from the depths. “Wait a minute, Sherlock . . . I can’t believe I’m asking this . . . have _you_ ever . . . oh Christ . . . had sex with a dolphin?”_ _

__“Bloody hell, John,” Lestrade blurted in horror. “What the fuck kind of question is that?”_ _

__“A perfectly reasonable one under the circumstances,” Sherlock admitted. “Thankfully, the answer is no.”_ _

__“That’s a pity,” said Porter. “You could have been a great part of the entertainment. Get one of those merman’s tails fitted just for you; you’d be beautiful. Give your little friend there some tentacles . . . “_ _

__“Hey!” John cried. “Who are you calling little?”_ _

__“Not in the least,” Sherlock said. “Based on my calculations, John is packing one impressive tentacle already. Though that still sounds better than the tuna costume you tried to push on me that one time,” Sherlock mused. “Still . . . really _not my area.”__ _

__“That is some weird shit,” Lestrade said conversationally. John thought he looked like he was beginning to settle cheerfully into the unreality zone._ _

__Porter shook his head. “Mundane people, can’t appreciate a good ‘alternate’ experience. Oh yes, it looks weird and silly at first, but as you get used to it, get immersed in it, it sneaks up on you. This one here -” he jerked his head at Sherlock. “Plays innocent, but I’ve got pictures. Antlers and spotted body paint and glued-on strategic bits of fur. Nothing else. Well, except for that cute little tail.”_ _

__“I liked to keep my coke-whoring on land, back when I did that,” Sherlock said, shrugging. “Carl Powers’ death left me with a lifelong dread of villains near water.”_ _

__“Take him away, Sally.”_ _

__“Mistakes may have been made,” Porter said pleadingly, “and certain features may not have been entirely as advertised. Due to circumstances beyond my control and communication issues, funds were not available when expected, although it was known that they did exist and would soon become available to pay all contracted parties. Contract changes were made at the last minute, and this was not always communicated to me in a timely manner, and promised refunds did not materialise. We understand this was at least partly due to poor mobile reception and a malfunction of PayPal’s web site.”_ _

__“PayPal?” Lestrade blurted in disgust. “What kind of blackmailer or blackmail victim uses PayPal?”_ _

__“A very unprofessional one,” Sherlock said. “I’m disappointed.”_ _

__“Speaking of being unprofessional,” John said. “Lestrade, turn your head for a minute. You too, Sally. Okay?”_ _

__“Er . . . “ Sally looked mutinous but they both did it anyway. John punched Porter in the nose._ _

__“Christ, John,” Lestrade said. “You can’t do that every single time some thug tries to hurt Sherlock. You’d get that carpal tunnel thing.”_ _

__“It wasn’t that,” John said. “It was that bloody passive-aggressive passive-voice. I know I’m not the greatest writer of all time, but goddamn it that was painful to listen to.”_ _

__“The irony is that it wasn’t the dolphins or the cocaine that tripped him up.” Sherlock said, watching as Sally led Porter away, doing her best not to come into unnecessary contact with him as she did so._ _

__“Wait, what?” John asked._ _

__“Shoddy construction again, his _bete noir._ Or perhaps his _poisson noir_ , under the circumstances. He cut enough corners on construction, then on maintenance, that this whole place could collapse at any moment,” Sherlock said, pulling the screws from the ballpit out of his pocket. “These screws are so cheap they’ve fallen out. And just look at the state of the panels. That’s what he was being blackmailed over.”_ _

__“Of course,” Lestrade said, “Renee Sands, the victim, was a building code inspector.”_ _

__“Mm,” Sherlock murmured in agreement, “I’m sure if you check, you’ll find she was here about six months ago for a child’s birthday party, noticed what a mess the place was, and has been blackmailing Porter ever since.”_ _

__“So you needling him about the dolphins?” John asked._ _

__“Was just a red herring. Though he is indeed a drug smuggler, the Met somehow got that part right. That makes you, what… one for six at drugs busts this year?”_ _

__“I might be able to help,” the man from the hallway with the dogs said. “I’m with the FBI. And these are drug-sniffing dogs. Well, one of them is. And this one’s a trained cadaver dog. And Edgar’s great at duck hunting, and Winston is tops at fetch.”_ _

__John didn’t think he wanted to know which one of the dogs had turned its attentions to Sherlock’s crotch._ _

__“I think you can take it from here, Lestrade,” Sherlock said, attempting to shoo the dog’s nose away from his trousers, where it had already left a damp spot. “Let’s go, John.”_ _

__“It was a bit of a disappointing con,” John said as they grabbed a cab back to Baker Street. “Not much of a murder mystery for you to solve.”_ _

__“True” Sherlock said, sliding a hand across the seat towards John’s leg, “but there’s still a ball pit in the parlour to investigate.”_ _

__“I think I’ve got an extra hour or two,” John said with a little smile, letting his knee settle into Sherlock’s grope. “Isn’t it deflated, though?”_ _

__“I’ve got a patch kit and an air pump,” Sherlock leered and managed to make that sound filthy._ _

__“Oh good,” John said. “So . . . maybe you could put the high heels back on, then?”_ _

__“Mmmaybe,” Sherlock said insinuatingly, with a knowing little smile._ _

__“And those picture he was talking about . . . with the, the _tail,_ and the . . . ?”_ _

__“Want to see?”_ _

__“Oh God, yes.”_ _

**Author's Note:**

> When discussing my experiences at DashCon and the ball pit memes we saw floating around afterwards, we wondered why we hadn’t yet seen a Sherlock casefic involving a ball pit. This was the result: 100% crack with more fandom meta references than you can shake a flower crown at. -W
> 
> Well, truth be told, we wondered why there was no porn set in a ball pit. I offered to try to write it, but, as I have never been in a ball pit, I had doubts about my ability to make the sensory details feel accurate. Winter caught me Googling Chuck E. Cheese locations in the Chicago area, and immediately put a stop to my obsessive researching tendencies. She didn’t _exactly_ slap my wrist, but close. This isn’t porn, but we hope you enjoy it anyway. 
> 
> Regardless of rating, Sherlock and John TOTALLY got it on in the sad little kiddie-pool ball pit in the 221B parlour after this story was over, believe us. No queerbaiting here - they had sex and enjoyed it and decided to keep doing it with each other, together forever, and that’s the canon happy ending for this story. (though not in a ball pit forever - once is enough, just to say you’ve done it.) -V.
> 
> No original characters (living or dead) in this fic bear any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead. -W
> 
> Real characters, of course, can answer for themselves. -V.
> 
> No dolphins were harmed during the writing of this fic.  
> (the dolphin references were inspired by lyndsayfaye’s A Public Apology to DashCon, found here: http://lyndsayfaye.tumblr.com/post/92445169514/a-public-apology-to-dashcon) -W 
> 
> I don’t want to suggest that ALL dolphins are coke fiends, but I did meet a few back in my hard-partying days. Also? If a young man wants to put on a merman tail and shake it in front of some pervy dolphin fanciers when he’s just trying to make ends meet? Don’t judge. I got paid to wear a lobster costume for two weeks once. You do what you gotta do. Whatever gets you through the night. -V


End file.
